


Suffer No Fools

by ElCapitan18



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, Parallel Universes, Slow Burn, twinquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-08 08:57:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElCapitan18/pseuds/ElCapitan18
Summary: The job at the Temple of Sacred Ashes was supposed to be easy gold. Valo-Kas was being paid to be non-biased babysitters while the world tried to remake itself. For Ozet Adaar, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness the kind of change people only ever hear about in stories. For his twin, Ozena, it's equivalent to telling the sun rise in the west: a lot of talk that could never effect change. When the temple is attacked, it doesn't matter which of them was right. All that matters is that they survive this mess, and hopefully leave things a little better in their wake.
Relationships: Alistair (Dragon Age) & Original Female Character(s), Cullen Rutherford/Original Female Character(s), Female Adaar/Cullen Rutherford, Male Adaar/Dorian Pavus, Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 3





	1. The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story has been discontinued, as I realized two chapters into writing it that it wasn't the story I wanted to tell. Thank you for stopping by, anyway. I'll be using these characters and themes in a different story, so keep an eye out!
> 
> Before you read: I don't have a lot of time to commit to fan fiction, so I don't know how often I'll be updating this story. I'm writing this for fun, because I missed this universe but I didn't want to write something as lore intensive as my other projects. That being said, I'm making enough changes to canon that I may as well categorize this as AU. I'll be borrowing some of aspects from D&D 5e, and taking creative liberties where I feel the story needs it. I just wanted to you be aware of all of that before you commit yourself to this story or these characters. 
> 
> That is all. I hope you enjoy this start as much as I enjoyed writing it!

###  **Ozena Adaar**

It was a quieter night than what she’d become accustomed to. Anticipation sat as heavy as the humidity in the middle of summer in the Free Marches, foreboding of something that made her stomach tight. By the few spats she’d had to break up on her way to the familiar camp, Ozena Adaar wasn’t the only one feeling it. 

Valo-Kas had been hired to keep the peace and, apparently, Ozena alone was willing to acknowledge the impossiblity of such a task. They would have better luck keeping the tide from touching the shore. Better yet, emptying the seas of water entirely with nothing but sieves. Such was the bad blood between Mages and Templars; a profound, unending ocean.

But there was gold to be had, and only a fool stood between Shokrakar and gold. 

Mud squelched under her boots as she trudged out from the path’s shadows and into the camp’s flickering, orange glow. Not far beyond it, towering over the shadowed treeline, was the dark silhouette of a mighty castle. A fortress of stone, the stronghold of all their fates. Ozena cursed its shadow as she approached the few figures gathered around the fire. 

A stout, barrel chested man sat atop a crate. The woven stacks of ash blond braids shone in silken reds and oranges in the fire light, ornamented with metal beads and rings. His beard was similarly braided a beaded, pride in his grooming even as he sat as weathered and worn as the rest of them. A shining red apple reflected the fire’s glow as the dwarf lifted it to his lips and, just as he was about to take a bite, Ozena snatched the fruit from his grasp and skipped just out of reach as he shouted a protest. 

“Oi, ya bleedin’ thief, I was goin’ta eat that.”

Sauntering over to the chopped log bench fashioned out of a poorly sanded tree trunk, Ozena plopped herself down beside a wiry half-elf whose only acknowledgement of her was a small twitch of their lips. “Then you should have been faster about it, Dev.” She winked and removed a knife from her belt. 

Devlon grumbled an irate, “Big blighters as ye’self ‘ave no business bein’ so fast,” under his breath as he reached into the rucksack by his boots and produced a second apple. 

An amused huff breezed out of her before she shook her head and glanced sidelong at the quiet figure beside her. She elbowed River’s side and made an incredulous motion toward the dwarf, in a wordless ‘ _ unbelievable _ ’ that earned a smirk. 

River’s name was apt. Ozena had never learned if it was given to them, or chosen by them, but it hardly mattered. They were tall, slender, androgynous, as fluid as their namesake with a temperament to match. Mostly steady and quiet, soothing in their certainty, there were those times that they were more akin to white water rapids. Violent and furious, devouring anyone in their path, she’d only seen River like that a few times, and each time she hoped it was the last.

Cutting a chunk out of the apple, she offered the slice to them. Jasper green eyes were dark in the firelight, brown and gold glinting in their depths as River glanced at the extended fruit and considered it. After a breath they nodded in thanks and pinched the piece between slender fingers, muttering, “Gratitude,” before returning to their book. 

Satisfied with her own generosity, Ozena turned on the bench. She lifted a leg onto its other side to straddle the uncomfortable thing, and fell backwards into River’s lap. Making pillows out of their thighs, she had to shift on the bench a bit to adjust her horns and, once she was comfortable, Ozena cut off a piece of apple for herself. 

To both of them, and neither in particular, she wondered, “Where’s my brother?”

Mouth full of bits of apple that fell into his beard as he spoke, it was Devlon who answered. “In the tent behind ye, lass. Been coordinatin’ with Shokrakar about tomorrow’s proceedin’s.”

Ozena hummed, popping a slice of apple into her mouth and chewing it contemplatively. Her brother was lieutenant of sorts, Shokrakar’s right hand man and second in command. If asked the others might argue that they shared that role, interchangeable and equally important, transcending twindom into a single being. As if sharing a nameday wasn’t enough. 

Besides, it was horse shit. Ozet was three minutes older, which amounted to years when you were a twin. He liked to think that he was in charge, and Ozena liked to make the head from ass removal as entertaining as possible with frequent reminders that no one was in charge of her. She knew he meant well, but well meaning brothers had a way of deconstructing a carefully put together reputation. And what was a mercenary without their reputation? 

Cutting away another chunk of apple, Ozena glanced around the fire, at all the available seats the rest of their group would have been occupying were they around. “The others on watch?” she mused, hurriedly stuffing the bite into her mouth so she could carve another piece when River extended a requesting hand. 

“Aye,” said Devlon, but it was River who explained. “Tomorrow the talks begin in earnest, and Lord Nibley is nervous someone might make an attempt on his life beforehand.”

A humorous exhale flooded from her nostrils. “Ah, yes,” Ozena hummed. She nodded sagely, expression schooled into shrewd consideration. “The fate of a minor, unnoteworthy lord with less influence than land, will decide the outcome of this summit. It is known.”

While the blond dwarf guffawed into his stein, River began to absently stroke Ozena’s hair. Their gemstone green gaze was back on their book as they commented, “It very well could.” They must have noticed the dubious purse of Ozena’s lips, because they supplied the rationalization, “Tensions are high. All either side needs is an excuse to attack the other. A minor lord could easily become a major problem.”

Ozena’s harrumph was conceding. She was too busy enjoying the feeling of filed nails scraping lightly against her scalp to argue the point. Shutting her eyes, Ozena blindly cut away at her apple. Every other piece was offered to River, lifted unseeingly toward their face and bumped against their cheek, nose, jaw, before she finally found their mouth. They were too accustomed to this type of exchange to mind, even opened their mouth to let Ozena feed them or snatched the slice of apple with teeth that snapped uncomfortably close to her fingertips when their patience started to ebb. 

It was always like this in the quiet moments. The comfort and certainty of being around those who knew you, who loved you, who had killed and would die for you, was the reason she and Ozet had never left Valo-Kas. Had never even considered it. Not when there were no jobs or money, not when they’d been approached individually and offered chests of gold to work independently of their brothers. 

After their parents… It didn’t matter that Shokrakar was a greedy bastard. He’d kept them safe and fed, and gave them a family when theirs had been taken. They didn’t stay because they were indebted to him. By now, they had repaid him several times over. They stayed because River let her use them as a pillow and feed them pieces of apple while they read. They stayed because Devlon braided her hair every morning while singing jaunty dwarven tunes, Eema kept her quiver full of arrows without anyone asking her to, Nysris mended the holes in their clothes, Ashir unfailingly offered to keep their blades sharp, Vercer distracted them with stories and songs on bad days, and they all kept their secret.

If she lived ten full lifetimes, she knew she wouldn’t find another group like theirs, and she was in no hurry to try.

She barely heard the tent flap push open. It was only the squish of icy mud under heavy boots that helped the sound process in her mind, accompanied by the rich gravel of her brother’s voice. “Zen, a word.” Their meeting was over then. Perfect.

“Extrapolate,” she said, lifting herself from River’s lap as the half-elf moved their arm to let her up. Turning her face to peer at her brother, she rebuffed, “Zet, a location.”

“The tent.”

All she had time to assess from her brother’s severe features was that he was still in strategy mode. His heavy brow cast dark shadows over lavender eyes that were the same as hers, bright as lilacs in the daylight, rich as mulberry in the camp’s flickering shadows. Full lips were set into a hard line under a bent nose, and the square line of his jaw meant business. That look had a way of making people nervous. People who didn’t know him, and didn’t know that that was his ‘I’m thinking’ face. Anyone who did know him could never figure out why they’d ever been afraid of him to start with. 

Standing more than a head taller than the tallest man in a room of tall men, made it easy to not notice how he was the first to get on all fours to speak to small, furry, four legged creatures. Wide set shoulders and a musculature that implied that he frequently uprooted oaks with his bare hands as part of his daily exercise regimen, also distracted from the way he picked pretty flowers and tucked them behind River’s ear, or on Ozena’s horns, or in Devlon’s beard. The world wanted to have its way with him, and Zet remained soft despite it all. In the dark of her own thoughts, Ozena could admit that it was his greatest strength.

He ducked back into the tent’s lantern lit interior before she could gauge much else from his face. He was never more serious than when he was wearing his lieutenant hat, and planning for the next day’s talks required that it stay metaphorically affixed atop his head. A sigh escaped her when the curl of his horns disappeared behind the tent flaps. Their work was never done.

Ozena lifted herself from the bench and stretched. “Best not to keep the princess waiting.” A kiss was pressed to the top of River’s head, their thick, black hair ruffled before she winked at Devlon and abandoned them both. 

It was only a few steps to the tent and she pushed the flap aside, ducking her head as to not get her horns caught on the entrance. Luckily this was Shokrakar’s tent, and he was about the same size as her brother. The interior was humble, large enough to fit both men and three more of similar size, a table, a cot, and a trunk. Both Shokrakar and Zet were standing opposite each other, on either side of a table with a map of Haven rolled out on top of it.

She stepped up to the end of the table and folded her arms over her leather breastplate. After a quick survey of the map, she glanced from one male to the other. “What do you need me to do?”

That was why they’d summoned her into the tent, after all. Strategy and tactics were Ozet’s forte. Ozena preferred knowing what was expected of her over being responsible for all of their fates. They knew that, and knew it at least partially explained why she submitted to Zet’s rank --as much as Ozena Adaar could submit to anything or anyone.

Her brother exhaled in a fortifying way that immediately made her grit her teeth. It was a bracing exhale, the kind of breath you took when a wave was about to crash over you and you didn’t want to get sea water shoved up your nose. That was Zet’s ‘please be reasonable, Zen’ sigh.

“Maintain a perimeter around the castle tomorrow,” he answered, also crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Around the castle,” Ozena repeated. She looked from her brother to Shokrakar, then back again, incredulous. “You want me outside, away from the proceedings entirely.”

Ozet opened his mouth to explain, but Shokrakar lifted a massive hand to stop him. It was the older Tal-Vashoth who spoke with all the authority his command afforded him, and then some. “We were not the only sell-swords hired to keep everyone honest during these peace talks. The temple’s interior will be well defended. But the area around it,” he motioned down at the map between them, “is likely to have holes in its defense, holes that someone with ill intentions might slip through to ensure that peace is never achieved.”

Zet added, “You are our best tracker, and can cover the most ground. No one can read a forest the way you can, or send a message fast enough to warn us if something is wrong.”

“We need someone on the outside, and it needs to be you.”

She looked from Shokrakar’s old, cragged face to her brother and sighed a resigned breath. There was more to it and she knew it, but she wasn’t so dim-witted as to not recognize sound logic when she heard it. Perhaps Zet wanted to keep her from close scrutiny from either Templars or Mages, but he was also right. She was the only one suited for the task in mind.

Peering down at the map again, she observed, “That’s a lot of area to cover by myself.”

“Eema can assist, but you will have to make sure she is able to contact you should she find anything or get into trouble.”

Ozena nodded. “I will watch the perimeter tomorrow. It is a bullshit job, but I’ll do it.”

“If it was bullshit you would not have agreed to it so easily,” countered Ozet, eyebrow cocked in challenge, mouth twitching with a smirk he knew better than to let slip. 

“I agree to bullshit all the time if it means watching your back.”

“You will be tomorrow, too, Zen. Perhaps not directly, but--”

Shokrakar chimed in with a placating half smile and a rumbling, “Yours might very well be the most important job tomorrow. The interior is secure, but if we have no exterior defense--”

“I already said I would do it. You don’t need to keep convincing me.”

“Then get out of my tent. We’ve an early start tomorrow and I intend to greet it well rested. As should you.”

She and her twin shared a look before they both wished Shokrakar sweet dreams and trailed out of the tent. He was right. In a few hours they were going to watch the fate of the world unravel. Or, rather, Ozet would. Ozena would be in the trees, watching for interlopers, as far away from the action as her brother could put her. 

What was it she always said about well meaning brothers? Oh that’s right, they were a pain in her ass.

###  **Ozet Adaar**

In the early hours of the following morning, Zet emerged from his tent, teeth gritted against the chill that greeted him. A nod was shot to Ashir, who’d taken last watch, and Nysris, who handed him a steaming bowl of something hearty and received a grateful kiss on the cheek as payment. The tantalizing smell was half the reason he’d managed to climb out of his cot and face the cold. The other half had to do with the tension in his gut that had made sleep difficult to find and impossible to pin down, but he was trying not to overanalyze what was likely just nerves.

Breakfast was shoveled into his mouth and, between bites, he wrangled the members of Valo-Kas not on watch to wake. Starting with his sister, as Ozena would only sit up with a dreamy “I’m up, I’m up,” and plop right back into the furs the moment he stepped away to rouse the others.

He would have to circle back to her once the others were awake, and drag her out of bed by the horns if that was what it took. Which was almost always the case.   
Once everyone was up, grumbling, bleary eyed twin included, he and Shokrakar divided forces. The wisened Valo-Kas commander descended their camp on the wending path that would eventually lead to Haven. He was to convene with the other mercenary commanders and all would be briefed on where they would be positioned throughout the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Had he been invited, Zet would have accompanied Shokrakar. Since he hadn’t, he was taking advantage of the respite to observe the lines of mages and templars marching for the fortress.

“What do you think will happen today?”

He might have started if he hadn’t sensed her approach. Zet hadn’t heard his sister stepping onto the bluff he was toeing the edge of, but he always knew when Ozena was close. She was his twin. He knew her better than he knew himself, and knew she wouldn’t go into the woods without having first said her piece.

“Mostly yelling,” answered Zet without looking away from the procession of robes and glinting armor. “The kind of change the world needs won’t happen in a day.”

Zen huffed as she stepped up beside him. She folded her arms like he had his, and stared at the hundreds of people hoping to remold the world into something better, something more accepting and understanding, less filled with hate. Except those weren’t the thoughts on her face when he looked at her sidelong. 

His sister was tall, even for a Vashoth. She was shoulder height to him, and that was without the additional measure of her horns. Where Zet was as wide as an oak, Zen was lean like a birch tree. Fast, agile, light on her feet, for all the people who recoiled in fear of him there were thrice as many who simply gaped at his sister in awe. 

They had the same ash complexion, a grey that was light and dark, burnt coal, a stormy sunrise. She had the same thick, arched eyebrows as he did, the same straight nose --though hers had never been broken-- the same full lips, and angular features whose edge could cut down a man if she willed it. Her sleek, silver hair cut straight as a blade when loose, all the way down to her waist. Now the silken strands were intricately braided, woven locks that Devlon had fashioned into a single plait while Zen had been ravenously digging into breakfast. 

Zen wore it all better than he did, more gracefully, with an elegance she dismissed bitingly enough he stopped bringing it up.

Those sharp, graceful features were pinched by doubt. There was disagreement in her violet eyes, guarded contention that hardened her expression as she regarded the gathering masses marching toward the Temple of Sacred Ashes. 

“My brother, the authority of the world and its needs.”

“I never claimed to be an authority on anything.”

“Aside from me.”

“Zen--”

“I know why you’re really delegating me to the forest, Ozet,” she stated without malice or anger. There was a note of frustration, though, quiet and smoldering, the gentle glow of a bed of coals prodded just often enough to keep burning.

He cocked an eyebrow and looked away from his sister, glancing down at the parallel lines of marching revolutionaries just long enough to mutter, “Because you can read a forest floor like an open book, and can tell a person’s mood by their footprint.” His attention cut back to Zen and he sighed at the displeasure narrowing her eyes. She would have called out his flat attempt at flattery if she weren’t committed to the don’t-patronize-me glare she was boring into him.

“Listen, Ozena, we cannot know how these peace talks will unfold. If things go badly, if they turn violent and the templars…” He shook his head and wiped his calloused palm down his face. Pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes, Zet confessed, “I need you far from that possibility and what it would mean for you, for us both.”

She sighed and there was resignation in her voice when she grumbled, “When will you recognize that I can take care of myself?”

“When you recognize that my being overbearing is as much for my peace of mind as it is for your safety.” His hands fell away from his face and Zet turned to face his sister. Grabbing her by the scruff, he yanked Zen forward a step and lowered his brow to hers, knocking their horns in an affectionate tap. “Stay vigilant today, and be safe.”

Cool fingers gently grasped him by the nape and squeezed. “You too,” she murmured into the space between them. 

They stayed like that for a moment longer before her slender fingers slid from the back of his neck, and he released her in turn. Before she stepped back, Zen lightly punched at his breastplate, an affectionate thump he hadn’t physically felt. “Try not to get too bored today, brother. We are going to have words tonight about you keeping me from the action.”

Zet returned her mischievous simper with a playful smile of his own. “They better be kind words, sister,” he advised, “I might not survive the day.”

She hummed disapprovingly before swivelling on her heel and striding into the trees, long silver braid swinging behind her as she disappeared between their trunks. Zet watched her go. Another, weighty exhale flattened his chest. Their conversation felt unresolved, and he didn’t think that it ever truly would be. Her frustration would always exist, because his protectiveness would never wane. He was her brother, her older brother, she was his responsibility and he was never going to apologize for doing what he had to to keep her safe. No matter how well he knew she could handle herself. 

With a final glance down at the mages and templars, Zet also started for the trees, in the opposite direction than his sister had taken. He had to meet with the other Valos-Kas, with Shokrakar who would tell them where they’d been posted for the day. With any luck they’d be inside the temple proper, witnesses to a remaking. The question was how it was going to be remade, and what it would mean for the people he loved. 

Shaking his head clear of his buzzing thoughts, it was a short walk back to the group, then to the temple. Shokrakar dashed any hope of a firsthand account of the day’s events with the revelation that Valo-Kas would be guarding the main hall’s exterior. Apparently Ozena wouldn’t be the only one kept away from the action. She could take some satisfaction in that, at least.

Shokrakar didn’t share his disappointment. They were being paid handsomely to stand in the hallway like expensive suits of modest, mismatched armor. 

Hours passed with a fatiguing slowness, broken up only occasionally with raucous shouting that went on for a few minutes before quieting again. He strained to hear the words whenever it happened, listening for any indication to how the peace talks were going, if any progress was being made. Walking back and forth down his portion of hall kept him from succumbing to his boredom, but couldn’t keep the feeling of unease from sitting like brambles in the pit of his gut. 

Zet found himself glancing frequently out the narrow windows that overlooked the woods between the temple and Haven. He wondered what his sister was doing, if she was as bored as he was, if she was still safe. While he didn’t regret sending her to watch the perimeter, a part of him did wish that he’d told Eema to stay with her instead of splitting off to cover more ground. They were both out there alone. A fact that wouldn’t have concerned him if it weren’t the pit in his gut. 

The more time that passed without event, the deeper the pit burrowed. Foreboding had him on edge, and his glances toward the window became more frequent, his strides less controlled, his heartbeat more frantic. Zet’s instincts had his muscles coiled tight, braced for something he couldn't name. Something was wrong. Something was about to happen if it hadn’t already. 

When, after only a few minutes a blue jay landed on the windowsill, wings flapping as it blinked rapidly, head cocked and bobbing as it observed him, Zet grumbled a harsh, “Vashedan.” He approached the blue jay, which jumped from the sill and fluttered onto his outstretched hand. 

Small black beak parting, it wasn’t chirping that filled the hall, but the quiet rasp of his sister’s smoked applewood voice. 

“Eema is dead. Found her body near a cave that runs under the temple. A dozen headed your way. I will follow. Be safe, brother.”

"Fuck!" he cursed more heatedly. Fissures cracked over his heart at the thought of Eema, but he pushed his sorrow back, punched it down as far as it could go and filled the space with determination. There would be time to mourn her after. First he would avenge her. Right now the temple was under attack, and he needed to alert the others. 

The bird hopped along the length of his finger, head tilting, wings flitting, after a chirp that sounded almost like a heartfelt ‘good luck’ it flew out the window it’d come in through. He turned from the window, from the bird, from his sister’s voice still lingering in the corridor, and ran in search of Shokrakar. Stuffing his thumb and forefinger into his mouth to fold his tongue back, his sharp whistle ricocheted off of the stone walls. Valo-Kas would know the sound and what it meant. It was time to fight. He only wished he knew who against. 

Turning a sharp corner, he was thrown off course by an explosion that shook dust from the rafters and the structure on its foundation. Screams sounded from the main hall, pained and panicked, confused shouts that were cut off by wet gurgles. The cling and clash of swords was joined by bursts of magic, more explosions that rattled the walls and floors and, as he ran, Zet wondered just how much the old fortress could stand before it collapsed on top of them all. 

Sprinting down another corridor toward the antichamber that led to the main hall, he muttered a thankful prayer to whatever forces were watching them now. Long black hair swayed like spun night. Slender limbs moved with an elegance, even as they waved people out of the room, mage and templar alike, nobleman, soldier, cleric and apostate, it didn’t matter. They all staggered out of the room in coughing fits, covered in dust and blood. 

“River,” he called as he approached them, slowing to a stop to watch as more people scrambled from the dust cloud that filled the space they’d just left. 

Their jasper green eyes were wary, black eyebrows tight, and wide lips pressed into a hard line. They looked to him for direction, for a command. Things were going worse than anyone could have imagined, and they needed him to tell them what to do. He was their lieutenant, they needed him to own the part now more than ever. 

“Get these people to safety, Riv. Tell anyone you meet along the way to follow you, but don’t you stop. Do you understand? You get out. Get as many people to go with you as you can, but you get out.”

“What about you?”

Before he could answer, one of the bloody and dust covered clergymen cried, “They took the Divine! Just pulled her away.”

“I’ll find her,” he said to the clergyman, raising a hand to halt his hysterics before they overtook him. Refocusing on the half-elf in front of him, he repeated, “I’ll find her, and then we’ll be right behind you. Go. Get these people to safety.”

They held out their hand to Zet and he didn’t hesitate to clasp their forearm. He gripped them by the shoulder and hugged them to his chest for the span of a heartbeat before releasing them again. “Go,” he repeated, louder this time.

A nod and murmured, “Be safe,” was made his way before they turned from Zet, wrapped the clergyman’s arm behind their neck, and walked disappeared with him around the corner. 

Zet wasted only a second watching them go, praying to forces he neither knew nor understood that his company would survive this, that his sister would survive it. Gods, Maker, Andraste, whoever was listening, please let Zen be safe. When the silk obsidion of River’s hair vanished behind the corner, obscured by the plume of dust curling from the hall, he covered his face with his coat sleeve and entered the space with a wave of his hand. There were bodies strewn across the floor. Blood gathered in pools, it sprayed the walls, gore streaked over the stonework. A fight had happened here. It had been short, and messy, and only a few had lived to stumble out of the room and into River’s arms. The rest were caked onto the walls, seeping into the floors, sprayed across tapestries. They were dead, and the Divine had been taken. 

Spotting the doors at the end of the hall, Zet rushed through them into another long corridor with two large double doors at the end of them. He thought he heard shouting, a cry for help. He ran forward and kicked the doors apart. 

“What’s going on here,” he shouted, and the world exploded in green light. 


	2. Desperate Times

###  **Cullen**

_ Maker turn his gaze on us _ .

This was all so familiar. The pillar of light that speared into the heavens, piercing through the clouds and tearing the skies asunder. Screaming sounded from all sides, a chorus of panic, of pain, of absolute terror that haunted his dreams so completely that sleep eluded him altogether for years now. He’d seen it before, had felt it before. 

Evergreens cracked in half. The sound of bark splintering, trunks splitting, whole trees uprooting thundered as loud as the screams surrounding him, followed by the crash and sprinkle of upturned earth. Whole columns of stonework was slammed into the forest. Walls and rafters, mortar and masonry, a monument to time had erupted like a volcano that set the world on fire with green light. The sky was falling and he’d seen it all before. 

The past blurred over the present, a stained glass that obscured his vision with images that plagued him still. In that instant he felt the weight of his armor tenfold, a full suit of heavy plate brandished with a flaming sword. He was back in Kirkwall and another sacred temple was burning to the ground, detonated to rubble that tore down the buildings around it the same as the trees that collapsed around him now. 

It was happening again. This was Kirkwall all over again. It was worse. 

“Commander!”

He blinked and the world slammed back into focus. Cullen didn’t stop to think. He’d been here before. He knew what had to be done.

“Tell the Chantry Sisters that we will need medical tents erected immediately and as many cots as can be spared.” The soldier saluted with a shouted acknowledgement then ran for the Chantry. To another soldier he instructed, “Gather volunteers to carry stretchers and assist with the medical tents. Instruct every able bodied person you can find to be ready to ferry supplies as needed.”

Another crash was followed by more screaming, a shrill screech that didn’t sound at all human. Before Cullen could think too heavily on the source, he shouted a commanding, “Now!” at the wide eyed soldier staring in horror at the sickly green sky. 

He scrambled backwards, stumbling over his own feet with a stuttering, “Y-yes, Commander. R-right away,” then spun on his heel to do as he was told.

He scanned over the remaining soldiers awaiting instruction until his gaze settled on a fierce looking woman, determination burning in her eyes. Cullen said, “I need healers to accompany us up the mountain. A majority will be needed here. Only gather those with field experience and tell them to follow our path exactly. It should be safe enough.” When she saluted, answering with a militant, “Aye, Commander,” he addressed the remaining soldiers. “The rest of you, with me.”

If there were survivors, they would not only find them but carve a path for the healers to save whoever they could. There was work to be done and the men had their orders. There was no more time to waste. 

Confident that the remaining soldiers would follow him into the chaos awaiting them beyond Haven’s walls, he pulled his sword from its sheath and started for the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Cullen didn’t pause to gape at the sky, at the wound-like gash that sliced across it and bled green toned power. There was nothing he could do to keep the sky from falling, but he could find survivors, he could search for the Divine. He could salvage some semblance of order and maintain it for as long as was possible. 

It was his responsibility now and Cullen was done letting his charges down. 

Less than a mile into the forest and he realized that it wasn’t just Kirkwall he was to relive today, but Kinloch Hold, too. Demons wove between the trees in physical form. They prowled like wolves hunting for prey, screeching excitedly at the sight of their approach. 

When men began to shuffle back a few steps, he said a firm, “Steady now. Hold the line,” that rumbled with the full authority of his new position. 

The backward steps halted, fear no longer the dominating force in the tension bearing down on them. It was replaced by a determination that came out in a roaring advance as Cullen led the charge on the straggling demons. They met in a clash of metal on sinewy flesh, protruding bone, green wispy energy with all the substance of fog. The demons shrieked and growled as they swiped at the soldiers with claws the size of daggers. Spirits skated over the landscape with hollow gasps, incomprehensible whispers. Ducking behind his shield, Cullen deflected a blast of fadic energy and emerged again with a swipe of his sword. The horror in front of him screamed a furious bellow, shrinking away from his undaunted advances. 

It didn’t take long for them to dispatch the small group of demons, but the sky pulsed with verdant power and he knew these few were only the beginning. Each thrum of otherworldly energy was accompanied by a volley of malformed creatures that plummeted from the rift like a meteor shower. They fell in a hellish hailstorm that filled the forest with inhuman screams. 

If the tear in the sky kept pulsing, kept disseminating demons into the forest below, it would only be a matter of time before Haven was overrun. If Haven was lost how long before the rest of Ferelden followed suit? They’d survived the Fifth Blight because Warden Cousland had unified a nation that could not be more divided than it was now. 

With the Temple of Sacred Ashes in ruin and the Conclave lost in the rubble, it would be all too easy for the world to descend further into chaos. All that stood between the world they knew and irrevocable mayhem were the forces that had gathered under the Divine, the forces under his command, the men who stood behind him and fought with him into the unknown.

Haven could not fall. He wouldn’t let it.

Rallying his men, they continued up the mountain. It was worse than what Cullen could have imagined. There was no end to the horrors that stalked through the forest. Wave after wave washed down the mountainside, a tide that couldn’t be stemmed, an onslaught that couldn’t be contained or beaten back. 

Each time they cleared a bevy of demons more slunk through the treeline. For every one slain, two took its place. Thanks to the erratic pulsing energy overhead, there was no shortage of demonic forces. Men were collapsing around him, one by one, and they were only part way to the temple. So far they’d found no survivors, and the higher they climbed the less certain he was that they would find any at all.

His mind worked as he fought. Every bash of his shield and swipe of his sword was accompanied by a rush of strategy that might help them survive this mess. A forward camp would staunch the bleeding. Not only would it be an additional wall protecting Haven, but it would be safer to move survivors from the temple’s ruins to a forward camp, then down to Haven, than it would be to risk a single trip. Arming soldiers, having healers on standby, securing a path safe enough for runners to come and go as needed, it was a necessary foothold that would give them a chance. As soon as he assessed what had become of the Temple of Sacred Ashes Cullen would find a place to moor down.

A soldier beside him was knocked on his ass by the force of a demon’s talons. His panicked backwards scramble was testament to his inexperience. Cullen moved between the soldier and the demon. He raised his shield to block the downward slash of curved, black nails, then brushed the momentum of its attack to the side, forcing an opening. A forward lunge and he stabbed his blade into the demon’s gnarled body. Steel plunged deep before he dragged the blade up, carving through blackened, fleshy innards that spewed with a sulfuric stench he doubted he’d ever get used to.

When he pulled his sword out again two more strikes felled the creature. It collapsed with a gurgling scream that rasped to silence. Cullen turned to the soldier still on the ground, gaping up at him, shocked, and offered the young man his hand. 

“On your feet, recruit,” he said, yanking him upright.

They shared a nod before rejoining the fight. Cullen was relieved that, when another throng of demons had been conquered, his men were still standing. This close to the explosion’s epicenter, it was their joint effort that would see them back down the mountain with survivors in tow. If there were any to be found. 

“What in Andraste’s sacred pyre is that?”

Cullen looked up from his vanquished demon, searching first for the soldier who’d muttered the question, before following their gaze. He stared, dumbfounded, at a tear in reality as he knew it. A green gash levitated feet off of the ground, pulsing in time with the breach above them. It was a window into the fade, a doorway he could see through and walk around, thin as parchment. 

Within it was a glowing figure, sunlight embodied, feminine in shape. As it moved within the rift, another of the ogling men mumble a breathless, “That’s…  _ Her _ . The Maker’s Bride, come to save us.”

The brightly glowing figure ushered a second, larger figure toward the rift. They were moving rapidly, the hulking shape stumbling and limping as it was rushed along. None of them spoke as they spread out around the rift, staring into its depths, watching as something stepped out of the fade, heavy limbed and delirious. 

No. Not something. Some _ one _ . 

Tall as an oak tree and just as wide, his knees buckled under the substantial weight of him. The qunari collapsed onto the blackened cobblestone, unconscious before he hit the ground. Crackling audibly, his hand sparked with the same green energy that tore the sky apart, lighting up in time with the breach’s pulse. 

This was not what Cullen had been expecting in his search for survivors, but they needed to get this man back down the mountain all the same. Someone would decide if he was their damnation or salvation. All Cullen could do was everything within is power to give them a fighting chance.

* * *

###  **Ozena**

Pain lanced up her leg to gather in her hip, her back, her ribcage. The reverberating ache had drawn her from the black of unconsciousness like a lifeline thrown into storm tossed seas. Ozena stirred, groaning, her hand lifting to her face to rub at the sting bleating behind her temple. 

“Fuck,” she rasped, trying to shift her weight only for more pain to quake through her body, pinning her down until it passed. 

Rapid blinks were meant to clear her vision, to focus it from the black that blinded her, but it persisted and she had to beat back the panic that rushed to the fore. She reached deep within herself for that small ember of power and stoked heat from its glow. Lifting her hand in front of her, she summoned both the heat and the glow. A dim, green huen light manifested in the center of her palm. It hovered there, a weightless orb that only gave off enough light to illuminate the space immediately around her. 

“Fuck,” she said again, half surprise-half complaint. Mostly just resignation.

The cave had collapsed around her. Whatever that explosion had been earlier, it had jogged chunks of rock loose and it had all come crashing down. Ozena was pinned not by her pain, but by the rocks that had knocked her unconscious. She cursed again. 

When she moved her hand from under the glowing orb it stayed exactly as she left it, floating like a dust mote, only bigger. And shiny. Grimacing against the flash of pain, she adjusted her position and assessed the damage. By some miracle she’d somehow avoided the worst of the collapse. Rubble had knocked her on her ass. If the ache in her skull meant anything, she’d been knocked out by the loosened rocks, too; either taking one to the head or getting her bell rung by the cave wall when she fell. There was no telling how long she’d been unconscious for. Long enough for the dust to have settled and the pain to have sunk its teeth in deep.

She was alive. As far as silver linings went, it was a start. 

A glance was cast at her surroundings to survey the structural damage. Most of the cave’s roof had toppled, blocking the path forward, deeper into the tunnel that burrowed beneath the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Some of the debris that had laid her out was now piled on top of her and didn’t budge when she tried to shift her weight or wriggle out from under it. 

Muttering another curse under her breath, Ozena leaned her head back on the grooved wall behind her. The weight of her sigh dragged down her eyelids. She stole a moment to brace herself. By the throbbing pain in her hip, that travelled down her leg in time with her heartbeat, she knew that pulling herself free was goin got hurt. A lot. And she needed a second to rally her strength. 

In her line of work death always lurked around the next corner. She wasn’t afraid of it. But she wasn’t going to die in a cave in either. She wasn’t going to die without knowing for certain that her brother had survived whatever explosion had caused it. 

Eyes opening to the dim green light of her floating orb, Ozena sat up as far as she could and began removing what rocks she could reach from the pile pinning her down. It was a long, exhausting process, painful with how much movement it demanded of her. Teeth gritted against the burning, pulsing sting, she shovelled heaps of dusty stone from her legs. The only way for her to measure time’s passage was by the near crippling ache that slowed her progress. 

Exhaustion drained her. It forced her to stop and catch her breath, to rest and gather her strength for another round of digging. She swore each time she was forced to stop. There was a rising sense of urgency that had her heart knocking anxiously against her sternum. 

Her fingertips were bleeding, but she wasn’t convinced that the subtle, cramp-like ache in her palm was only to blame on the digging. Something was wrong. Her instincts were screaming it at her. This was taking too long and she couldn’t afford more delays. Zet couldn’t afford it. She didn't know why or how she knew it, but she did. She knew it in her gut, in her blood. The same blood that ran through his veins. 

Releasing her hand from her hold, from the thumb that rubbed at the inexplicable soreness that had settled in her palm, Ozena got back to work. 

She didn’t stop again, wouldn’t allow herself to. Ozena dug. She shifted the rubble around, pushed rocks aside, and wiggled the rest loose until she finally managed to ease herself free. Hobbling herself upright, the damage was so painful it was easy to take stock of. As she braced herself against the cave wall, she felt the blaring agony of cracked bone. Her thigh screamed at her as warmth trickled down her leg to gather in her boot. Her hip also had vocal complaints, but her ribs were louder. They protested her every breath, her hunched over position, even the near panicked rhythm of her heartbeat. 

The faint glow of magic wasn’t enough to reveal the full extent of the damage, but she didn’t need unobstructed daylight to know it wasn’t petty. Her pool of magic was too shallow for her to heal herself fully. That and healing magic wasn’t her forte. She wasn’t exceptionally skilled in any school of magic, but that went double for healing. There was enough power and know how at her disposal to take care of one injury. Maybe two. Wanting to be mobile and not pass out from blood loss, her leg took priority. 

Biting down on her molars to keep from shouting, she grunted through the pain as she grabbed a hold of her thigh and pressed down on the bleeding laceration, on the broken bone beneath. The light that lived inside her, the glowing ember of power, shone in her palm. Small beams of it spilled from the cracks between her fingers and the space between her hand and her leg. Her floating globule dimmed the longer she poured her magic into her leg, which started to itch uncontrollably as flesh and bone stitched back together. By the time she was done there was barely enough light to see by. She dug her nails into the damp fabric of her pant leg, scratching away the residual itchiness before she tested her leg. 

The pain that flared came mostly from her hip and ribs, and only slightly from her leg. It was stiff and sore, but it didn’t buckle when she put weight on it. Walking with a limp was better than not walking at all. Ozena was mobile, and that was all she could bring herself to care about in that moment. That and getting out of this Maker forsaken cave. 

A push lifted her from the wall. Squinting into the darkness, she moved her orb over the rubble she’d just cleared and searched for her bow. With the toe of her boot, she shifted more rocks around until she uncovered a lovingly sculpted stem of ashwood. Folding down with a grunt, she pried her bow free from the rocks only to sob an incredulous noise when it cracked in the middle, irrevocably ruined.

“Of course,” she grumbled miserably, holding both pieces of her broken bow in either hand. Throwing her head back, Ozena whimpered her frustration before tossing the useless sticks aside. A quick pat down of her person confirmed that none of her knives had been lost in the collapse. Close quarter combat wasn’t her preference, but she could more than hold her own if she had to. 

Since the forest wasn’t an armory outfitted to her preferences, her options were limited to the weapons strapped to her person. Ozena was decidedly categorized as “had to” and also had bigger concerns. Namely getting out of this cave. 

Leaning heavily on the cave wall, she stumbled along the path with her orb to light the way. Left hand curled into a fist, she cradled it close to her chest and tried to squeeze away the pain that had gathered there. It was a phantom ache, the memory of an injury she’d never sustained and was trying not to think too heavily about as she navigated the rubble obstructed path. 

Much as she wanted to speed up her hobbling pace, Ozena forced herself to take her time. Sifting through debris and pulling herself out from under it had been exhausting enough. She needed to be conservative with her energy. If there was a fight waiting for her at the mouth of the cave, she would need every ounce of strength she had left in her. 

It was lucky that her stealthy pace entering the cavern ensured that she hadn’t ventured that far down its length. Maybe a half hour of limping later, she sighed a breath of relief when she turned a corner to find light pouring in from the cave mouth. It was brighter than her globe so she dispelled her magic before unwanted eyes made connections better left unmade. Limping along, she unsheathed a knife from her hip and squinted against the late afternoon light as she stepped into it. 

It took a few blinks for her eyes to adjust, then a few more for her mind to make sense of what the world had become in her absence.  _ How long have I been out? _ she asked herself, surveying over the broken trees, the kicked up dirt tossed over snow. There were hunks of cobblestone protruding from the forest floor like boulders, broken brick walls that had flattened the treeline. The air was tinged green, reminiscent of the amber filter of ozone after a spring storm. Except the forest didn’t smell like ozone. It reeked of sulfur and was filled with screams that didn’t sound human, or human adjacent. 

Green lightning streaked between the clouds, drawing her attention to the enormous tear in the sky, a rift that stirred the clouds surrounding it like the eye of a hurricane. Under her breath, dumbstruck and wide eyed, Ozena mumbled, “Andraste’s hairy tits,” and stumbled further away from the cave. 

What the fuck was  _ that _ ? And where had it come from?

_ Zet _ , her mind shook itself back into focus with an urgency that cooled her blood. She needed to get to the temple. She needed to find her brother. Whatever the hell  _ that _ was, she wouldn’t let Zet face it alone. If they were to die on this mountainside they would go together, as they were always meant to do. 

A quarter mile northwest was a path that would lead her to the temple, the same route the cavalcade of mages and templars had taken. It was the quickest way and Ozena had the sinking feeling that she was already too late.

When enough distance had been placed between her and the cave, the Temple of Sacred Ashes came into view. Or, at least, it should have. Open space occupied the place where the temple had once stood, filled instead by floating boulders and broken stonework, by a pillar of green light that beamed down from the rift with crackling energy. 

The temple was gone, had been the source of the explosion that had caused the cave to collapse around her. There was nothing left but a broken skeleton of what had once been. It was gone. Anyone who’d been inside, gone. Zet… gone. 

…

… Zet… gone… 

Hands shaking as she clasped them over her mouth. Tears rushed her vision so fast the pain only registered in her sinuses after she’d been blinded by them. A sob choked her, it built too fast in her lungs, pushed too hard at the base of her throat. She couldn’t breathe past it. Couldn’t think around it. All Ozena could do was gape blindly at a sky torn asunder and scream silently into her hands as gravity pushed her onto her knees. 

Landing in the snow jostled the sob loose from her chest and it came out in a heartbroken shriek that deafened her own ears, her scream no longer silent, her pain no longer physical but insurmountable all the same. She folded herself in half, face buried in her palms, and rocked on her knees as she wept for her brother, her twin. He was gone. They were all gone. 

Zet’s smile played in her mind’s eye, their last conversation loud in her head. 

“...  _ We are going to have words tonight about you keeping me from the action.” _

_ “They better be kind words, sister. I might not survive the day. _ ”

He’d gone to his death, and she hadn’t told him she loved him. 

Time was as lost to her as the twin she no longer had. It could have been minutes or hours that she spent there, kneeling in the snow, sobbing into her legs, gripping her horns, grabbing fists full of her hair. It was the proximity of an inhuman scream that finally peeled her up from her knees. She glanced unfeelingly over her shoulder, only for her heartbeat to stutter in horror. 

An otherworldly creature prowled closer at an alarming rate, growling excited nightmarish sounds as it neared. Had it been a bandit, a templar, even a bear or wolf, Ozena might have accepted her fate. She might have been grateful to not have to face the rest of her life without Ozet. But this creature forced her to react on instinct, on reflex. When fight or flight demanded she act, she grabbed her knife from where she’d dropped it in the snow and launched herself at the creature with a scream. 

Her blade plunged into its fleshy exterior again and again, and again. Black blood sprayed with each stab. She felt it splatter over her skin, cool and dead, indistinguishable from the snowfall. Shrieking wildly the entire assault, she only stopped when the demon had, when it lay motionless beneath her. Tears filled her vision again as she caught her breath, but then the snow exploded not a foot from where she was crouched. 

Ozena spun to see a ghastly figure glide into the clearing. She tightened her grip on the knife and prepared herself for another fight, but a dagger spun past her, lightning quick, and buried itself in the spirit’s unsubstantial chest. It floated there for a second before falling to the ground as the green tinted apparition dissolved like mist. 

“Zen!”

She turned toward her savior and was overcome by both disappointment and relief at the sight of the obsidian skinned vashoth rushing toward her. Nysris Sloane, her kith, her sister, she was alive. The way the smaller female wrapped her arms around Ozena and squeezed her to her chest was proof enough that she was real, and not a figment of Ozena’s grief stricken imagination. She hugged her back just as fiercely, fingers gripping desperately at her lightweight leather armor. 

“How’d you find me?” she whispered into Nys’ shoulder, tears sluicing down her cheeks in heavy streams she was helpless against. 

Nys tightened her hold around her, murmuring, “Pure luck,” before pulling away to lock Ozena’s eyes with the sterling gold of her gaze. “The mountainside is crawling with demons. We have to go. Now.”

“Zet,” she sniffled, a fresh wave of tears blinding her to Nys’ grim expression. “The others…”

She saw Nysris shake her head through the veil of her tears. “All we can do for them right now is survive. Can you walk?”

Ozena nodded then grimaced when she pushed herself onto her feet, swaying when her aching head swam. Her arm lifted from her side and Nysris pulled it over her shoulder. If her emotions weren’t in shreds she might have laughed. Only half vashoth where Ozena was full blooded, she was nearly a foot taller than Nys and was slumped comedically against her. Nothing in that moment was funny, however, and she doubted anything would ever be again. 

Glancing up at the angry looking tear in the sky, she found it fitting. Her world had been torn in two. It was only right that the rest of the world know her pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was kind of too excited to post, so I didn't edit to the best of my ability. Please kudos or/and comment if you like the story <3

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and Comments are manna from heaven!


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